Casting Internets

Whoops, meant to publish this yesterday.

Dean over at Springfield Punx has started up another week of Simpson-esque versions of the characters from Lost. I love these theme weeks he does. Here's today's entry, Claire. Check SP this week for all his updates.


Also, did you know that Ohio is the only state in the Union that has an offical rock song? That's what I learned from Music Legends Revealed #22 today. Now, don't get me wrong, I learned in 7th grade that "Hang On Sloopy" was the official rock song of my fair state, BUT I just assumed every state had one. So take that Washington, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Texas with your rich musical heritage! HA!



I just discovered a site called Holy Taco with a post called 25 Awesome Stained Glass Windows. Most look like Photoshop work--good work, but fakes nonetheless--except for this Batman one. Check out the post for the full list which includes Gene Simmons, Kermit The Frog and Optimus Prime.

I pretty much completely agree with Tom Bondurant's Grump Old Fan post called "The new Justice League, working against the clock." It's nice to read another JLA fan
Oh, DO go on.

Fall Out Boy Love Lost

Check out this story from /Film that combines two of my favorite things: Lost and FOB. Apparently the Fall Out Boys were brought in to help promote all the build up for the final season. I haven't really been paying much attention to all that (I'd get all twitterpated), but I do love the Dharma gear they're playing and Pete Wentz giving a shout out to Driveshaft. Good stuff. Here's the video:



[post does not go on]
Oh, DO go on.

Season Finales: Lost

I'm sure most of you Lost fans have checked out the episode by now along with plenty of blogs, like Sean's, and websites like Lostpedia but, if you're like me, you're still not sick of talking about it.

I loved the season finale, even though it killed my theory (I hope) and I'm not really sure how I feel about Jack and Juliet using their relationships as a reason to blow up the island. But I think what the creators were trying to show is how far gone Jack is. Or maybe not, we shall see.

I also liked the Jack/Sawyer fight, hopefully they got it out of their system, though it got dirtier than I expected.

Also, how cool was is that Ben got played? I'm operating under the assumption that Fake Locke is either the smoke monster (and thus the guy in the black shirt from the beginning) or in league with him. So, what you had was the smoke monster as Ghost Alex telling Ben to listen to Ghost Locke (possibly the same person/thing). On top of that Ben reveals he's not as with-it as he seemed when it comes to the island. Of course, all this raises even more questions, like what was the deal when Locke and Ben were in the cabin and what kind of relationship did Ben have with the smoke monster before this? And a bunch more of course.

Hopefully you checked out Sean's blog that I linked to above. It's a great read, but one thing I do have to disagree with him on is that I will never get sick of that "car out of nowhere" scene, even when it's super obvious (like it was last night). It was almost as good as seeing Locke falling from the building behind Jacob (which I called as soon as we saw Jacob sitting thing, though I have no idea why). Speaking of calling it, I gotta give huge props to Em for realizing that Locke was in the box.

Finally, the black text on white background was awesome and obviously deliberate. I wonder if it means things will get flipped. The two big schools of thought I've encountered are that 1) the people in the past succeeded in changing things and will be starting over in the first season (or another earlier time period) or 2) the pasties (heh, just came up with that) will be reunited with the current folks and we'll see a fight for the "soul" of the island. I'm hoping for the latter, because I think it'll offer up more answers than the former.

Damn, January seems really far away. I'm thinking of rewatching the previous seasons this summer to see how the story flows as one big piece to get ready for the final season.

Oh, DO go on.

A Big Lost "What If?"

A CRAZY thought crossed my mind last week while watching Lost. Hit the jump for more and consider this your spoiler warning.

Okay, so Faraday has this crazy theory that blowing up an atomic bomb on the island in the past will stop the survivors from crashing on the island in the future, right? Well, what if he's right and Jack succeeds with this crazy plan? What if there isn't really another season and we've been duped?

I'm not saying it's going to happen, but wouldn't that be crazy? Sure there's a time paradox or twelve in there, not the least of which would be, assuming Faraday's mom is still on the island when the bomb goes off, how does Faraday come back in time to figure things out if she dies and he's never born? Interesting.

Just a thought.

Oh, DO go on.

TV Time 4/20-4/26

You guys know I love TV, so I figured I'd write about it in one big post (unless something really knocks my socks off). So here's a quick rundown of what I watched this week on the idiot box.

MONDAY
8:00-9:00PM
Unfortunately both Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother were re-runs last week. Still had fun watching these episodes again, though.

10:00PM
Castle is really growing on me. It's the one procedural in our weekly line-up, but damnitall of Nathan Fillion isn't super-charming. His partner is even growing on me (she kind of scared me the first few episodes). What started out as a show we'd watch because nothing else is on has turned into a new weekly favorite.

TUESDAY
9:00PM
I'm really glad Fringe is back. I actually missed it while it was on hiatus, plus, it's really the only thing we watch on Tuesdays. This episode was interesting enough on its own, but also offered a deeper level of mystery and connection that will hopefully explode with craziness as the first season wraps.

10:00-10:20PM
I caught about 20 minutes of The Unusuals. I really liked what I saw, but wanted to watch Josie and the Pussycats without falling asleep, so it lost out. I'm still rooting for the show's success.

WEDNESDAY
9:00PM-10:00PM
As all the Losties know, there wasn't a new episode last week, but a clip show. This one looked at the Oceanic 6 and showed all the flashforwards and flashbacks in chronological order. It wasn't necessary to watch, but it reminded me of a few things I had forgotten. I'm still not clear on the time frame of Locke visiting Jack, Locke getting killed, Jack flying around with a scruffy beard and Jack running into Ben at Locke's showing. It seems like there's too much time there for all these events to happen in a realistic fashion. I'm not saying they don't have everything figured out, it's just nagging at me a bit. I'm sure there's an explanation.

10:00PM-11:00PM
The Duel 2 continues to offer up a level of conspiracy that is always hilarious. I'd really love someone who has studied game theory to either analyze the show or, better yet, make it onto the show. I myself did not take the game theory class my college offered (too much math and science for this English major), but it sounded fascinating when friends would talk about it. Without getting into spoilers, the guy duel was pretty intense. Unfortunately, the guy we were rooting for didn't win, and thus the status quo continues.

THURSDAY
8:00-8:30PM
I don't talk about My Name Is Earl a lot, but it's a consistently good show that I enjoy every week. I'm impressed that they've been able to keep such a solid show going with what seemed like an easily exhausted premise, but I'm always happy to see Jason Lee, Ethan Suplee, Jaime Pressly (anyone else remember Poison Ivy 3?), Nadine Velazquez (Catalina) and Eddie Steeples (Crabman)every week.

8:30-9:00PM
Last week's Parks and Recreation was the best episode yet. But that's not really saying much. To be completely honest, we're only still watching this show because it's between two other shows we like and I'm pretty sure nothing else is on. I wish they would keep the cast, scrap this concept and just start over because watching Poehler act like a Michael Scott clone for 22 minutes is just painful.

9:00-9:30PM
We finally get a resolution to the doomed-from-the-start Michael Scott Paper Company and it was a lot more fist pumping than I thought it would be. That being said, I was totally worried that Michael would screw things up in the meeting.

9:30-10:00PM
30 Rock is awesome. As much as I love the plots and larger jokes, it's really the smaller jokes that get me. Like when Kenneth is passing out and says something like "My name is Dick Whitman." Awesome. Or a few weeks back after seeing the world through Kenneth's eyes and then seeing the real Liz walk-running like a Muppet. I am a bit worried that Tracey and Jenna are turning into cartoon characters instead of actual real characters. Oh, I'm also sad to see Salma Hayek leaving the show, both because she was really funny and hot.

10:00-11:00PM
I totally meant to watch all of Harper's Island last week. After all, it's essentially a show about a slasher killing wedding guests off one by one on an island. I was all into last week's episode (the second of the season I believe), but I fell asleep in the last 10 minutes and completely missed the ending. Luckily, this week, I didn't fall asleep. I'm not sure yet how I feel about Harper's Island. I've given up watching my favorite Girl Next Door Bridget on her new bikini-filled show Bridget's Sexiest Beaches to check it out. I did have a hard time keeping track of the characters (lots have the same hair color and look too similar). But I think I'll stick with it for now.


FRIDAY
8:00-10:30PM
After sloshing through the first 20 minutes of The Spirit (more on that later), we gave up and watched some Cartoon Network. Saw a Batman: Brave and the Bold episode that focused on the Blue Beetle legacy (even showing Dan Garret, the Golden Age BB!). As always, it was a rad episode. Then I checked out an episode of the Clone Wars CGI show that was kinda cool and made me want to check the show out on DVD. After that The Soup was awesome.

Later that Night...
We watched the end of the Red Sox/Yankees game. Being from New England, Em is, of course, a Red Sox fan and hates the Yankees. Being something of a Tiger's fan and initially not being all that happy about moving to New York, I hated most NY sports teams (and still do, really). So, even though I don't particularly like the Sox, I like watching the Yankees lose. And lose they did. In overtime. This reminded me of college when Em would come over and we'd watch from inning 8 or 9 on of the Sox World Series. Now, that's baseball.

SATURDAY
While hanging out in Nyack we kept an eye on the game. Didn't see the end, but the Sox took it.

SUNDAY
8:00-9:00PM
Em and I have become pretty big fans of the Amazing Race. We stumbled upon it when The Simpsons was in reruns last season, but this is the first season we've watching, mostly, from beginning to the soon-to-be end. Better than every reality show game except Real World/Road Rules.

More Baseball
Em fell asleep watching the game, but I was in it till the end. A dude freaking stole home! I've never seen that before. It was awesome. See for yourself:

The Yankees play the Tigers next, so hopefully I can see them get beat up on Detroit style (but without guns and knives).
Oh, DO go on.

Wired Is Awesome

Thanks to the good folks at /Film I heard that Lost co-creator and producer/director extraordinaire J.J. Abrams (a fellow initialate) is the acting guest editor of this month's issue of Wired. So, being a huge geek, of course I picked it up.

I was slightly familiar with Wired thanks to my time living with Rickey Purdin. He's one of the biggest purchasers of magazines I know. As a producer of magazines, I'm thankful for his ilk, even though I give him copies of ToyFare for free. Anyway, he always had a good stock of Wireds in the bathroom and I would...partake when the opportunity presented itself.

Anyway, I'm only through the initial news bits in the beginning of the mag and haven't gotten to the features yet (that's magazine lingo for articles), but this is a great magazine. It's a great mix of science and entertainment. Plus, a friend and colleague from the good old days at Ohio Wesleyan Jen Trolio has a bit in there called "Life's Secret Codes" on page 20. I completely freaked out when I saw her name in the byline and then got really jealous, but mostly it's cool to see someone else from my incredibly boring Journalism 110 (and also a fellow first semester freshman in a class full of upperclassmen) doing something in the magazine world.

Employment of friends aside, I'm also really impressed with the clean design sense of the magazine. It never feels cluttered even when there are a ton of elements on the page. I was also impressed with how easy to understand even the more complicated articles and sidebars. Plus, I haven't come across any spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors, which does the tiny editor part of my heart good.

But hey, if you're even remotely interested in science or like Star Trek and Lost, you should probably grab this issue and dive in. I think I'm going to get a subscription. It's about time I start doing my part for the industry that I make my living off of.


Oh, DO go on.

SO Excited

You guys, I am SUPER excited about tonight's TV line-up. Even Tyra's America's Next Top Model, a show I despise more than any other on television, can't diminish my excitement for Lost and the season premiere of Real World/Road Rules Challenge: The Duel 2!

As you know, Lost is my favorite show on TV right now. So, my already high anticipation for any and all new things Lost was heightened to crazy levels after last week's episode which will not only (hopefully) reveal how Ben got all messed up before trying to get back to the island and what happened to Penny and Desmond, BUT it also looks like we'll get a look inside the Smoke Monster's temple! The commercial made it look like freakin' Indiana Ben and the Temple of Doom!

So, in addition to what will hopefully be the best episode of Lost ever, I've also got the Duel which will hopefully make up for what turned out to be the worst season finale in Real World history (and I know, I've seen them all). So, it'll be nice to see some familiar faces beating the crap out of each other for money and acting like hooligans.
Oh, DO go on.